Fruit feeding device



Jan. 23, 1945. F. w. CUTLER FRUIT FEEDING DEVICE Original Filed July22,- 1940 2 Sheets-Sheet l m mroe WAX/67725? Jan. 23, 1945. F. w. CUTLER2,367,757

FRUIT FEEDING DEVICE Original Filed July 22, 1940 2 Sheets-Sheet 2FIG... 4

'corporating a Patented Jan. 23, 1945' 2,367,757 FRUIT FEEDING DEVICEFrank W. Cutler, Palm Springs,

to Food Machinery Corporation,

Calif., assignor San Jose,

Calif., a corporation of Delaware Original application July 22, 1940,Serial No.

346,724, 9, 1943. 2, 1943, Serial now Patent No.

2,313,051, dated March Divided and this application January 1 Claim.('01. 198-30) This invention relates to the feeding of rollable articlesand particularly to the feeding of such articles in single file at apredetermined uniform rate. As this invention is particularly useful inthe feeding of fruit from a grader to a sizing machine, it will bedisclosed as employed in this connection in thepresent application.

The sizer which has come into most general use for sizing apples is theCutler sizer which operates on the weight principle. This sizer weighseach individual piece of fruit, it being necessary to feed the fruitindividually to a series of weighing pockets traveling along with aconveyor. For the sizer to operate properly, only one piece of fruit maybe fed to each of these pockets. Before the fruit is fed to one of thesesizers, it is customary to grade the fruit by hand on a grading tablefrom which the fruit is fed along conveyor belts to the sizer. It isextremely difficult to feed just the right amount of fruit along theseconveyor belts traveling between the grading table and the sizer so thatan excess amount of fruit will not arrive at the sizer causing more thanone piece of fruit at a time to be deposited occasionally in one of thesize pockets.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a fruit feedingdevice by which fruit may be conveyed from a grading table to a singlefile weight sizer in such a manner as toeliminate two pieces of fruitbeing fed to one of the sizer Dockets at a time.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a fruit feedingdevice by which rollable pieces of fruit may be fed individually atuniform intervals and in uniform spaced relation along a given line to apiece of apparatus adapted to receive the same when so fed and wheresaid fruit is delivered to said device in excess of the amount rquiredfor such feeding.

This application is a division carved out of my copending applicationfor U. S. Letters Patent, Serial Number 346,724, filed July 22, 1940 andissued March 9, 1943, as Patent No. 2,313,051, for Fruit handlingequipment.

The manner of accomplishing the foregoing objects, as well as furtherobjects and advantages, will be made manifest in the followingdescription taken in connection with the accompaning drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a fragmentary plan view of an assembled fruit grading andsizing apparatus inpreferred embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 2 is an enlarged cross-sectional view taken on the line 2-2 of Fig.1 and illustrating one oi. the feeding devices of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is an enlarged cross-sectional view taken on the line 3-3 of Fig.1 and illustrates another of the feeding devices of the invention.

Fig. 4 ma longitudinal sectional view taken on the line 4-4 of Fig. 1and illustrates details of construction of the feeding device shown inFig. 3.

Fig. 5 is a detailed transverse sectional view taken on the line 5-5 ofFig. 4 and illustrates the mechanism for driving the feeding deviceshown in Figs. 3 and 4.

Referring specifically to the drawings, the grading and sizingapparatus. l0 shown therein includes a grading unit I I, sizing units l2and I3, feeder units l4 and I5 for feeding fruit to said sizer units,conveyor belts I6 and IT for feeding fruit from said grader unit to saidsizer units, and return belts l8 and IQ for returning excess fruit fromsaid feeders I4 and I5 to said grader unit H.

The grader unit 11 The grader unit ll includes a delivery board orhopper 25 and a series of fruit supporting conveyor rollers 26 which aredisposed on opposite sides of a well 21 which is surrounded by a wall28, this well being provided to receive cull fruit sorted from thatcarried on the rollers 26.

The rollers 26 are rotated so that their upper faces move toward thecenter of the grader unit H, thus causing threads 29, formed by wrappingrope about the rollers 26, to feed fruit in a leftward direction alongthese rollers. Sweep-up boards 30 and 3| sweep this fruit inwardly fromover the rollers 26 and onto the conveyor belts I6 which deliver thefruit in single files to the fruit feeder unit M. In Fig. 1, the belts Hare broken away but these comprise part of the grader unit I l andextend centrally and longitudinally over this unit within reach of theworkers grading the fruit. In the grading operation, merchantable fruitof a certain quality is segregated out from that carried on the rollers26 and placed on the belts I! to be sized by the sizer section l3.

The sizer sections 12 and 13 These sizer sections are of the type wellknown in the art as the Cutler sizer which is almost in my U. S. LettersPatent No. 1,184,697, issued May 23, 1916; No. 1,633,002, issued June21,

1927; and 1,860,732, issued May 31, 1932.

The units It and I3 are identical. Each of them has a pair of endlessthe fruit feeder conveyor chains 48 which are connected by rods 4| oneach of which is pivotally mounted a pair of pockets 42, thus formingtwo traveling rows of these pockets while the device is in operation.The chains 46 are trained about a series of sprockets, one pair of whichis mounted on a shaft 45. The pockets 42 are adapted to receive fruit asthe chains 40 travel about the shaft 45. Each pocket receives a singlepiece of fruit and, as it travels along the pathway traversed by theupper flights of the chains 40, sizes this known in the art.

Provided along each sizer section l2 and i3 is a series of rotary bins46, the construction and operation of which is well known in the art,these bins receiving fruit in accordance with the sizes into which it issegregated by the sizer units I2 and |3.

The fruit feeding devices 14 and 15 These devices are alike with theexceptions to be noted hereinafter. Each includes a shaft 50 which isdriven as by a chain and sprocket connection with the shaft 45 and hasmounted thereon star wheels 52 which are in alignment with therespective rows of pockets 42 of the adjacent sizer section. Each of thestar wheels 52 preferably has four pockets and the chain and sprocketconnection 5| rotates the shaft 58 so that each of the pockets 42 in theadjacent sizer section is adapted to receive a piece of fruit from oneof the star wheel pockets as the sizer pockets pass thereunder.

The shaft 56 carries a 'miter gear 55 which meshes with a miter gear 56provided on a shaft 51. The shaft 51 is journalled in a pair of angleirons 58 and 59 provided on the frame of the apparatus In and has a gear68 provided on its rear end. Also extending between and journalled insuitable bearings provided upon the angle irons 58 and 59 are and twoouter rollers 66. A system of gears Bl provided on rear extending endsof shafts 68 of these rollers mesh with and are driven by the gear wheel60 so that the rollers 65 and 66 are driven to cause their uppersurfaces to travel outwardly.

The outer rollers 66 are disposed slightly above the inner rollers 65,and all of these rollers are provided with rope threads 18 which areproduced by strands of rope coiled about the rollers, the pitch of thesethreads on these rollers being such that a series of travelingpocket-like spaces are created in the valleys between the rollers ofeach of these respective pairs which travel from the delivery end of thebelt l6 to the star wheels 52 located at the discharge'end of thesevalleys.

The inner rollers 65 are separated by a septum board 15 toprevent fruitfrom falling inwardly from the valleys between the pairs of rollers 65and 66. The discharge ends of the belts |6 in the fruit feeding devicel4 and the belts l1 in the fruit feeding device l5 are disposed justover the receiving ends of the valleys between the rollers 65 and 66.

Disposed adjacent to,. outwardly from and coextensive with each of theouter rollers 66 in i4 is a discarded-fruit elevator 80, these beingproperly driven during the operation of the apparatus III to receive anyfruit passing over the outermost rollers 66 to elevate and dischargethis fruit onto one of the belts l8. The elevators 86 may be'of anypreferred type but are shown as comprising a pair of endfruit in themanner well two inner rollers 65 v less chains 8| carrying rods 82 whichsupport an endless belt of canvas 83 so that this sags somewhat betweenthe rods 82 in the upper flight of the conveyor to receive and elevatefruit disposed on this canvas and deliver the same onto return belts l8.

These return belts travel toward the fruit grading unit II, the fruitbeing swept off of the discharge belts l8 onto the rollers 26 bysweepoff boards 85.

In order to cause a gentle transfer of the fruit handled in the fruitdelivery device i4, drapes 86 and Bl are provided at the discharge endsof the belts I6 and star wheels 52 as shown in Fig. 4, so that the fallof fruit being delivered at these points is broken.

The fruit feeding device i5 as shown in Figs. 1 and 2 is identical withthe fruit feeding device |4, except th t 'it is not equipped withelevators 86. In place of the elevators 80, the fruit feeding device l5has inclined chutes 90 for delivering fruit discarded from the outermostrollers 66 onto the return belts IS, the latter being disposed at alower level than these rollers. The return belts l9 travel rearwardlyand deliver discarded fruit onto the receiving ends of the belts I8 50that this fruit is conveyed by the latter belts until it is swepttherefrom by sweep-off boards 85 onto the spiral rollers 26.

Operation The operation of the apparatus I0 is believed to be clear fromthe foregoing description, but will be briefly outlined as follows:

All the moving elements of the apparatus are first set in motion asabove described. Fruit is then dumped as from boxes onto the dropboard25 from which it rolls down onto the spiral rollers 26, these conveyingthe fruit longitudinally thereof beneath the eyes of a series of workersplaced along the grader unit ll, whose function is to examine the fruitas it passes by, select culls therefrom, throwing these into the well21, and pick the less numerous of two merchantable grades of fruit fromthe rollers 26, placing this fruit on the belts IT. The rest of thefruit is allowed to continue on the rollers 26 until swept off by thesweep boards 3| onto the belts l6, which deliver this fruit in singlefile into the valleys between the rollers 65 and 66 of the feeder devicei4.

In order that the sizer sections l2 and I3 may operate at full capacity,it is desirable that each of the pockets 42 receives a piece of fruit asit passes by its respective star wheel 52. To accomplish this, it isnecessary to feed an excess of fruit along the conveyors l6 and I1 tothe feed device I4 and IS. The rotation of the rollers 65 and 66 has theeffect of locating one piece of fruit in each of the traveling pocketsformed between the spiral threads 10 as these pockets travel alongtoward the adjacent star wheel 52 of this device, but if there is anysurplus of this fruit other than that necessary to fill each of thesepockets, the action of the rollers. rotating both outwardly as they do,is to expel the excess pieces of fruit onto the adjacent conveyor whichdelivers it to a. return belt carrying the fruit back to the grader.Thus, no matter how much fruit is delivered by the belts l6 t thefeeding device l4, two pieces of fruit are never delivered by this feeddevice to a single one of the pockets 42 of the sizer section l2. Thereis thus no misfunctioning of the sizer as takes place when two pieces offruit are delivered to one pocket. Furthermore, each of these pock- -etsalways receives a piece oi fruit, provided an adequate supply of fruitis ied to the rollers l! and 66.

In the same way, the feeding device I! feeds fruit to the sizer sectionI3 so as to provide each of the sizing pockets 42 in the upper flightthereof with a piece of fruit and yet prevent the delivery of two piecesof fruit to any one of these pockets. Any excess of pieces of fruitwhich may be delivered by the conveyors H to the rollers 85 and 66 ofthe feed device ii are discarded outwardly into the chutes 90 andreturned by belts l9 and I8 to the grader H.

What I claim is:

A fruit feeding device comprising: a pair of feed rollers arranged inside by side relation to form a fruit-supporting valley therebetween,said valley having an open end from which fruit may be dischargedendwise from the rollers, said roll.- ers being provided with helicalthreads pitched in a common direction and arranged in cooperativerelation to form a series of fruit receiving pockets between the rollersfor the reception of individual pieces of fruit, one of said rollersbeing positioned with its upper surface above the upper surface of theother; means for rotating the rollers in a common direction such as tocause the upper surface of the lower roller to travel toward the higherroller and to cause said pockets to travel longitudinally of the rollersto advance the pieces of fruit in, said pockets along said valley towardits discharge end, and a guide disposed adjacent the lower roller toprevent lateral overflow to that side of the rollers of 'pieces of,fruit in excess of those in the pockets whereby said excess pieces offruit are forced from the rollers across the higher roller while thepieces of fruit conveyed in the pockets are free to be dischargedendwise from the valley between said rollers.

FRAN'KW. CUTLER.

